Introduction to iOS for Designers
This bootcamp is optimized for empowering designers to modify the view and animation related code for production apps. As such, there is a focus on views, navigation, transitions, and animations. Topics such as networking, threading, models, and device frameworks for accessing the camera and location are not covered. In addition, there is a focus on techniques currently used in production such as programmatic views and springs and struts over Interface builder and Auto Layout.
In terms of prototyping, the goal of the class is to provide the tools necessary to build rich, interactive mocks using Objective-C instead of Quartz Composer and other tools. While the bootcamps will not cover enough topics to make the prototypes fully functional, that would be the logical next step.
In order to finish the course successfully, there are a few course policies:
- Attendance. There is one excused absence allowed where acceptable excuses include illness, work, or personal travel. If you have travel plans, please let me know as soon as possible. No unexcused absences are allowed.
- Weekly homework submissions. There is weekly homework described in the course schedule below. Submission instructions are in the detailed links.
In the course schedule below, each week has two 2-hour sessions where we will cover about a dozen different use cases related to the topic of the week. Each week has a "skills checklist" that you should be able to do by the end of the week. Each week also has a homework that applies the use cases that we cover in class.
We will be covering laying out basic views such as labels, images, and buttons in Interface Builder and programatically. We will be covering topics and use cases such as the following:
- Basic
- Creating an empty XCode project and running in the simulator
- Adding standard and retina image assets to a project
- Changing the app icon and splash screen
- Views and properties
- Views, Labels, Images, Buttons, Text Fields
- Interface Builder vs. Programmatic view design
- Basic usage of navigation and tab bars
The homework this week is to make a non-scrollable version of a detailed view of a Facebook post. Full homework description is here.
We will be covering creating custom UITableViews with dynamic row heights populated with modeled data. We will be covering topics and use cases such as the following:
- Table Views
- Specifying the number of rows and sections
- Designing custom cells
- Using plain and grouped table views
- Setting headers and footers
- Models
- Specifying model properties
- Instantiating fake data
The homework this week is to make a scrollable version of the Facebook notifications view. Full homework description is here.
